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Bowie General > Images Vol. 06

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homebrewPosted at 2024-12-22 18:00:46(4 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 06)


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In the Usenet group alt.fan.david-bowie you would have run into a user named Jamie Soule aka aladInsaNE. Jamie wrote a series of articles that he called "Images" about our hero, David Bowie. I found them fascinating, sometimes infuriating, occasionally confusing and ultimately interesting enough to have saved them all (at least all that I could track down). I have made no attempt to alter the formatting, spelling, grammar or edit in any way.

Images: Part Six


This ain't rock n' roll, this is the gravy train. Nineteen seventy four,
the year of the Diamond Dogs and the renegotiated contracts. Defries had
secured  for himself from Chrysalis a higher percentage of the royalties
made from  publishing. He also had RCA increase the advance paid to
MainMan on each Bowie album to one hundred thousand dollars. This
increased the cash flow for MainMan but it was never enough to cover
expenses. This did not worry Defries however as he was being paid a
generous personal salary for managing Gem, Chrysalis and MainMan and
soon Bowie would be bigger than ever. Once everyone was sold on the fact
that Bowie was the biggest star to ever emerge the cash would come
rolling in the door.

Bowie entered his new role and started to play his part with ease. A new
fantasy had been scripted by Defries and Bowie was to act it out. He had
been totally reinvented. Once again Bowie erases his past. This is one
thing, in my view anyway, that Bowie does with ease and it has never
ceased to fascinate me how he can keep a straight face and look almost
convincing when he is in an interview and ninety percent of what came
out of his mouth were lies. It doesn't matter who is interviewing him or
how big the audience is. He seems oblivious to his surroundings. In all
the years I have been a listener of Bowie I have learned a few things
and some of these things have been rather enlightening, especially about
human nature. There is one thing in particular I have discovered and
that is exactly how fickle the general public are and how easy they can
be manipulated. I might as well say it, I've become rather immune to the
personal attacks I have received over the years due to some of my posts
as well as my personality, not only are the general public easily
mislead but there are a number of Bowie fans as well. This surprises me,
but also tells me something, and that is the fact that there are fans
out there who do not know Bowie's past history or much about Bowie for
that matter. This is why some blindly follow him without so much as a
question. Defries and Bowie had the public all figured out and they came
to the same conclusion. "I am writing a novel about my experiences on
the Trans Siberia Express," Bowie said in an interview. "I started out
as a painter," he told another. Bowie reinvented himself with a few
words and these words changed his past. All Bowie is who he says he is,
where he came from is where he says he came from and this can all change
in seconds. He was not a musician anymore, he never was. Bowie is an
writer and an actor. Bowie works in theatre and this theatre was going
to go on tour. Defries got his way as well regarding the venues even
though RCA was still protesting, this would be an arena tour. Who would
have thought differently?

The return of Bowie tour would turn into the largest stage production to
ever go on the road and Defries, along with Bowie, award winning
lighting director Jules Fisher and stage designer Mark Ravitz were
determined that it would be unequalled. "Big" was the word and big meant
that money was no object. This time Defries was going to wake America up
and there was no better way in his mind to do that then make it
impossible for anyone not to notice Bowie. Defries was going to put the
name David Bowie and MainMan on every TV station, radio station and in
every magazine and newspaper. Bowie would even come in the mail. This
time it would be too big to miss. The promotion that would be done for
this tour was staggering. Nothing had ever been attempted on this scale
before and my guess is nothing has since.  This was marketing's, "Finest
hour."

The press releases from MainMan came first and they were explicit. The
essence of them was to make the point that this was NOT A ROCK N' ROLL
tour.  The  press releases stated that Bowie would be giving, " an
extensive series of theatrical presentations" and "much of the content
of these shows is taken from Bowie's new RCA album, Diamond Dogs."
MainMan called it a "THEATOUR." Defries stated that MainMan would embark
on a one million dollar advertising campaign to market David as a
product. What he did not mention though is the fact that MainMan did not
have anywhere near that kind of money. One bright spot was that even
though RCA would not finance the tour due to the losses they suffered on
the last ones,  they did commit one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
to be used by MainMan for advertising purposes. Defries immediately went
out and spent four hundred thousand dollars on advertising and had the
bills all sent to who else but RCA Records And Tapes. David Bowie was
personally excluded from having any input regarding the marketing and
advertising campaign and he was never consulted before the decisions
were made and that is how he lost his name.

There would be no more David Bowie and the MainMan press releases
reflected that. He would now be known simply as "Bowie" and the staff at
MainMan as well as others were instructed to refer to him by that name
only. Even to this day Bowie is often referred to as a "chameleon" and
contrary to popular belief this image did not come from the press, or
Bowie. The portrayal of Bowie as the constantly changing artist who is
continually reinventing himself was thought up by the key people at
MainMan as a way to market Bowie. The chameleon image would be the focal
point of a massive mailing campaign which was to follow. MainMan had an
enviable mailing list consisting of around five thousand names at their
disposal for marketing purposes and this list was not wasted. On April
1st a newsletter was mailed out which announced the upcoming Theatour.
On April 12 a second mailing was done which gave the dates for the first
half of the tour and it included a black and white rendition of the
front cover of Diamond Dogs. Although it was probably not realized at
the time,  by using an original painting by artist Guy Pellaert instead
of commercial packaging for the cover of Diamond Dogs it resulted in the
cover being reprinted much more frequently in magazines and newspapers.
This was due mostly to the fact that the cover was indeed "art," and a
very unique piece at that. Publications were quite willing to reprint it
because it was something that was of interest and this in turn gave
MainMan a wealth of free advertising.  Three more mailings were made to
those on the list and in these mailings were seven photographs of Bowie.
Each photo showed Bowie with a different look proving that he was a
chameleon. MainMan also assembled an expensive press kit  consisting of
various pictures of Bowie that could be reprinted. It all came in a book
that was given away to writers and editors so the pictures could be used
in their publications to accompany any articles written about Bowie.

For additional promotion Defries had a series of radio and TV
commercials made featuring Bowie that could be aired in regional markets
in advance of the tour. He also had billboard advertising in Times
Square, Sunset Boulevard and Piccadilly Circus. There were full page
colour ads placed in all the major music periodicals in the States as
well as overseas. RCA supplied displays and posters for the record
stores and MainMan had metal dog tags made as souvenirs.  Defries had a
petition asking for more Bowie songs to be played on the radio
circulated and signed on a university campus which was then presented to
the radio stations.  During this time period Defries had cut the media
off from having any access whatsoever to Bowie, because as he had done
once before when the time was right, the media people Defries wanted
would be brought to the opening performance courtesy of MainMan. What he
hoped they would see would be something that was big. Bigger than
anything they, or anyone else for that matter, had ever seen before on a
stage.

This new character had a whole stage designed for him to play out his
role.  Defries had a stage set built to resemble an entire city.  Hunger
City, taken from the Diamond Dogs album, was a cross between Orwell's
futuristic nightmare and Metropolis from the film directed by  Fritz
Lang. You could, I am sure without any problem,  also throw in some
Salvador Dali and Todd Browning influences as well. Like everything
MainMan did money was not even in the equation when it came to
constructing the set for this Theatour. The price tag came in at around
four hundred thousand dollars. As part of the set there was a diamond
"pod" which opened like the petals on a flowe r. Bowie would emerge out
of the pod and there was a hydraulic arm with a chair attached to it
that would allow Bowie to hover thirty five feet beyond the stage over
the audience. The set weighed six tons and had twenty thousand moving
pieces, among them was a remote control bridge to raise and lower Bowie
in the midst of the buildings in Hunger City. The set took thirty men,
what was to be an estimated thirty hours, turned  into being a reality
of thirty six hours to assemble. They should have realized that with
something this large and complex there were bound to be some problems
which arose. A few did actually during rehearsals but of course that
didn't worry anyone. Not one little bit.

In Montreal on June 14th, 1974 Defries' spectacle had its grand opening.
Why Defries ended up  not bringing the press in for the opening show of
the tour I do not know, but it was fortunate he did not. The entire
system was overloaded  resulting in poor sound quality. There was quite
a bit of distortion caused when some of the wires melted. In addition
the bridge malfunctioned and crashed with David on it. The audience was
enthusiastic however and were undaunted in their approval by any minor
annoyances. Two days later the press was invited. This tour would have
some interesting moments.

aLAdINsaNE

To be continued.............


""I don't begrudge any artist for finding an audience"
- David Bowie abt. 1987
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homebrewPosted at 2024-12-23 22:16:25(4 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 06)


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Personal note: This isn't the most compelling of the articles so far but the next one is much better.


""I don't begrudge any artist for finding an audience"
- David Bowie abt. 1987
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dag97Posted at 2024-12-26 22:15:00(4 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 06)


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Thank you for these.

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neilwilkesPosted at 2024-12-28 13:33:53(3 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 06)


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This has been an absolutely fascinating series so far - thoroughly enjoyable & very much looking forward to the next installment.

Thank you for taking the trouble to share this!

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